It has been a long time since I have been sorely tempted by a new gadget, which is a bit of a relief for the wallet but makes life more boring.  I used to be able to spend hours browsing Comet or PC World wanting every other thing in there but I have sort of reached the point where I have everything I want.   The best the world can offer is a slightly bigger or better version of something I already have and am happy with.

Well that has changed and there are now there toys I quite fancy, even though only two of them actually exist.First of all there is the Kindle.  E-Book readers have been around for a while but have not particularly grabbed my attention.  Having packed up all my books recently I have realised that having a lot of them is actually a burden.  I have, perhaps, been guilty of fetishising books a bit.  I like to have them around and I like to be able to dip into them, but once you get more than a thousand of them it becomes a problem.

Looking at houses to move to I find that perfectly adequate places become unsuitable because there is nowhere to put up 30 or 40 metres of shelving., leading me to wonder whether electronic versions would be better.  At that point the new Kindle got announced and it really does look pretty good, especially the Kindle 3G.

What I especially like is the size.  I know you can read books on a smartphone, but that is just too small for comfortable reading.  You could use a laptop or iPad, but that would be a pain to cart around all the time.  The Kindle looks like it could be slipped into a pocket, which would be ideal.  The long battery life, free 3G, and display technology aer also very attractive.

I think I will hold off for a little while though, just in case Amazon decide to offer Kindles to their Vine programme.  I know they don’t need any more publicity for the device, but they might feel they want more reviews of Kindle books and we aren’t going to choose them without the means to read them.  Give regular reviewers a Kindle and it is more or less guaranteed they will use it and write reviews of Kindle books.

If I don’t get given one before Christmas I might have to treat myself.

The second toy I fancy is a Nespresso machine.  The coffee from them tastes lovely and it only takes seconds to make.  We do have an espresso machine but it is a hassle to use just for one cup, so I end up making a pot and then drinking several cups.  It was that weekend break in Bristol that converted me.

The other toy is something that would do for DVDs what my computer does for my CDs or a Kindle would do for books.  All my CDs have been ripped to the computer and the CDs themselves are all up in the loft.  The music is on an external hard drive, with copies of it on my iRiver and Creative mp3 players so it is all easily accessible without having shelves full of discs,  I would love to do the same for DVDs.

I know you can rip the DVDs to a computer and use streaming devices, but my understanding is that you store the films in another format like DIVX.  This is fine for just watching the film, but does it give you the option of the whole experience?  In many cases you do just want to watch the film, but sometimes you want to look at the extra, change the subtitle options or play the commentary.  I would like to be able to get the actual DVD menu and have all the options available.

It should also be very easy to use – so I don’t have to give a guest a training course and access to my PC to be able to watch something.

A DVD jukebox is a possibility, but there are not many of them, and they don’t hold enough discs.

I believe there are licensing issue that prevent anybody making exactly what I want, and I can understand those reasons.  I would like to buy a DVD, feed it into the machine and then file the original away in the loft, out of the way.   Unfortunately I would also be able to borrow a DVD from a friend, relative or library and do the same thing, and a lot of people would do that.

Actually, there does seem to be a product that can do what I want, but it is a bit high-end – like tens of thousands of pounds for a system.  The studios must assume that anybody forking out for that is going to fork out for proper discs.  Even that is not perfect though: it will play Blu-ray discs, but the protection on them means you have to put the disc in the player to be able to access the stored copy.  That seems to defeat the whole purpose.

If anybody can think of a way to digitise my DVDs easily, cheaply, and still get all the menus, options, surround sound features and everything I will be interested to know all about it.

As it is, I don’t have an iPhone or Android phone, an iPad or a Blu-ray player and have no urge to get any of them.  Had they been invented ten years ago things might be different.  Back then I was happy to lust after a bit of technology just because it existed, but for now my ambitions are limited to wanting to sit back reading an electronic book while sipping a Nespresso.